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Multi Seed Loaf with Rye & Spelt Flour

January 5, 2013 - 3:18pm

Song Of The Baker

Multi Seed Loaf with Rye & Spelt Flour

Since I am still nursing a brand new rye starter to life (finally there with great help from Minioven) I made a bread today with a biga preferment. I have been craving a loaf with seeds coming out of the yingyang so I stuffed this bread full of cracked wheat, steel cut oats and rye berries. I wanted a hearty loaf so I used a combination of bread flour with dark rye and spelt flours.

Never used a biga before so it was a new adventure. Actually, not really. Same as poolish just drier.

Now that I have my rye starter up and running, I will be trying a much anticipated go at a danish rye, packed with rye berries. This loaf today will have to keep me chewing happily till then. Thanks to Franko for the inspiration.

Hey, thanks. This one was quite easy. Similar to Jeffrey Hamelman's 5 Grain Levain.

Biga

85 g bread flour

9 g dark rye flour

2 g sea salt

61 g water

1/8 tsp instant yeast

Soaker

40 g rye berries

25 g cracked wheat

30 g steel cut oats

99 g boiling water

1 g sea salt

Final Dough

180 g bread flour

23 g dark rye flour

23 g spelt flour

All of biga

All of soaker

117 g water

3 g sea salt

2 g instant yeast

Directions

Mix all ingredients for biga and let sit in a covered bowl for 14-16 hours @ 70F

Mix all ingredients for the soaker and leave covered at room temperature overnight.

Final dough:

Mix the flours and biga with the water. Autolyse for 30 minutes.

After autolyse is complete add the salt and instant yeast and mix till the dough is slightly developed. Add the soaker and develop to a medium gluten strength.

Bulk ferment at 76F/24C for 90 minutes giving a full stretch and fold every 30 minutes.

After the last S&F round the dough to medium tight ball, cover and allow 15 -20 minutes for the dough to relax before shaping.

Shape and place seam side up in a well floured, cloth lined bowl or brotform. Proof for 45 - 50 mins.

Preheat the oven to 485F/251C prior to baking.

Final rise of 45-50 minutes at 74F/23C covered with plastic wrap.

Flip the loaf onto parchment paper and bake with steam for 15 minutes. Remove the steam system and lower the heat to 465F/240C. Bake for another 10 minutes. Turn heat down to 455 and bake a further 10-15 minutes or until the internal temperature is 210F/98.8C

Turn the oven off, prop the door open slightly and leave the loaf in the oven for 10 to dry out the crust.

Thanks Varda...wow, I have so many people I would like to thank....my agent, all my fans who stuck with me through all the starter problems...oh, and my family, and..*music starts playing*..oh no, they're telling me to wrap up...thank you all :)

I almost missed this too! Beautiful!!! Love the crust color and how it opened up so nicely during the bake. The grains look so nice and tasty. Now I will have to make room in my bread line up to make one like this too. I so often forget about using cracked grains and use nuts, seeds and fruits instead but when I do remember about grains people love the results.

Ian. Thanks to all you great bakers, I have been able to learn a thing or two on here.

I am DYING to bake again with sourdough starter. Minioven just got me through a long 3 week process of painful tries at starting a new starter. My starter from the summer time died a month ago so I have been baking with commercial yeasts since. I have learned that starting a starter in winter time here is virtually impossible without creating a 74 - 78 degree controlled room.

It is finally ready for baking. My plan is to try this recipe soon with sourdough starter.

I might go through withdrawal later, but heck, I have fun helping out. I still got my little Copahue volcano to keep track of. (back to orange from green) I sent some travel starter to the Congo. They have just the opposite problems with starter as it ferments like crazy, the kitchen one giant proofing box. The beasties are "jungle inspired" with big appetites.

I'm curious - I see your baking photo showing your loaf inside what looks like a roasting pan. Also, I notice the loaf doesn't fill the pan a la Lahey no-knead - is this how you get the "keep max steam inside" effect?

Thanks fellow Canadian foodslut. I started using a roasting pan early in my baking beginnings last summer and never stopped (except for baguettes - they won't fit). I find it produces good enough results, and some users even swear by it being better than a dutch oven due to it being easier to lower the dough into.

You are right, the dough does not fill the entire roaster (that would be one huge loaf!). What I do is slash, lower the dough on parchment into the roaster, pour about 1/2 cup boiling water straight into the roaster, then cover with lid and in the oven it goes. The water does not touch the dough as I have a few sheets of foil lining the bottom. I just pour the water in so it goes under the foil.

Tried it on a couple of loaves I worked on, and it worked great. I even tried it without water in the bottom (while spraying the top of the loaf before slashing), and it still worked great. Thanks again for the tip!

I forgot to mention that the soaker to this recipe can be interchangeable with all sorts of grain/seed ingredients. Just substitute equal amounts for sunflower seeds, flax, nuts, etc. I would toast the seeds prior to adding to soaker for added nuttiness.

Yes, they get a little crispy actually. The outer skin gets a little brittle. If you bite down on a flax seed raw with your front teeth, it's a bit chewy and when they are toasted they are a bit crispy. The taste is surprisingly nutty. I figured this out when a bunch of them fell off of a baked bread crust. I ate a small handful of them and was pleasantly surprised. Whenever I use them inside the bread, I pre toast them.

I am a huge fan of toasted sunflower seeds. Pumpkin too.

I realize now that toasting any grain or whole grain berry brings out a new flavour.

So excited to try this. I'm new to bread baking, but love really seeded whole grain breads. My ultimate is a rye sourdough seeded loaf, but my sourdough culture keeps giving me issues. For now I am very excited to try this recipe. Thanks for sharing!!

I think I fixed my culture woes by using a seedling sprouting heat mat and now after just 36 hours it is smelling great and very active. It went much slower the last time and ended up in the bad protien eating culture(nail polish smelling) place. This is the mat I use:

Gorgeous loaf John, nicely done! I'm really happy I was able to offer some inspiration for you to create your own lovely version of this bread and thrilled for you and it's well deserved front page posting. Awesome stuff !

Lauraclimbs, it took me a few weeks to find a local grain mill that carries an abundance of different whole grains and flours. I am close to Vancouver, BC so I am not sure what you may have locally in California.

Most of the typical grains such as whole oat berries, wheat berries, etc. I got from the bulk section of a local major grocery store chain. I had a hard time finding whole rye berries but just found that local mill I mentioned above. The local grocery bulk section carries whole and cracked. You can also look for Bob's Mill whole grains that come in small packages. At my local grocery store, I find them near the flour/baking aisle.

If after all that, if you still can not find any, you should be able to at least find some 7 grain cereal mix in the bulk sections or cereal section of the grocery store. That usually has some cracked grains right in the mix. If all that fails, then you can always substitute the whole or cracked grains with seeds such as sunflower, flax, or pumpkin.

Thanks for the help! I actually get my whole grains (hard red winter wheat and kamut) from a local Coop in town. I saw some millet and sunflower seeds at the store today and think i might sub those in (with the steel cut oats). Hope to try out this recipe this week as a sourdough!

Oops. I just realized I didn't answer your question about the cracking. I don't crack the whole grain kernels at home. I just buy them pre-cracked/cut.

I think I read some of Phil's (PiPs) posts that lead me to believe that crazy galoot cracks his own kernels...and mills his own flour. That guy takes baking to levels that intimidate me. They breed them different down under :)

Your multi seeded bread looks amazing! I am going to try this soon. One question re your steaming method .. do you leave your roaster lid on for the whole bake or remove to get that amazing colour on your bread? Also, perhaps a suitably sized low cooling rack might replace the foil? I have neither a DO nor a covered roaster but will now go searching. Or improvise! I sympathise with your starter woes .. try starting a starter in our summer temps here in Sth Australia .. currently hovering between 39-45C for days on end! Methinks I will wait for autumn perhaps! Sondra

As for the lid, I believe in my recipe above it says to bake with steam (lid on) for about 15 minutes, then without steam (lid off) for the rest of the bake. I will double check to make sure included that instruction.

Roasters are much cheaper than dutch ovens. I like your idea of a cooling rack. I do have one but it doesn't fit in. The other thing I am trying to do is get a baking bread/pizza stone, and then have it sanded down and shaped to fit inside the roaster. The only thing wrong with this idea is how to have it not touch the water that I pour in. That would most likely cause the stone to crack. I will figure it out someday. For now, I am happy with the outcome.

John, I place bread directly on a stone (actually a kiln shelf, purchased from a manufacturer of kilns for ceramics), and top it for the first part of the bake with a roaster lid. I don't pre-heat the lid in the oven, I spray inside the lid thoroughly with a fine mist of water just prior to slashing, load bread into oven and then add lid and have not had any problems with the stone cracking etc. I used to do as you do now (added water to the roaster) before I got the kiln shelf, but find I am very happy with oven spring, crust quality etc with the method I now use. I have occassionally forgotten to spray the lid and didn't really notice any difference, sufficient moisture from the loaf is trapped by the lid, but I continue to do it because it 'feels' right!

Robyn. Of course! What was I thinking?? I knew the lid system over a stone works. For heightier loaves I can even cover the dough with the roaster bottom as the lid is quite shallow.

I just have to get my hands on a good stone. I read quite a few posts regarding unglazed quarry tile at Home Depot, but when I went in there and asked for it, they all looked at me like I was goofy. Must not be stocked here in Vancouver. I am in the construction industry so I plan on talking to a few stone and tile trades to see if they have any material they can spare that would work.

Thanks rcoplen. It turned out great and tasted very nice fresh and toasted. The only thing I would change to the recipe is to do it with sourdough levain and not use commercial yeast. This is a good recipe for a quick bake though.

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